International Study Commission On Media, Religion And Culture
By Robert A. White, Commission Member
Significant among “think tank” work in the study of media and religion was The International Study Commission on Media, Religion and Culture. A small group of international and ecumenical scholars and practitioners, the group’s Executive Director was Adán Medrano.
The Commission met with media and religion leaders in Europe, Africa, South America, Asia, and Australia. The group planned a series of books to articulate the ideas and insights gathered. Listed below are excerpts from the Commission brochure.
Popular culture is bubbling with images and stories of religion. Yet traditional televangelism and broadcast worship services have only limited audience appeal. Religious leaders and scholars therefore ask:
What is the nature of religion in this media-dominated age?
How should the institutions of religion play a role?
The International Study Commission on Media, Religion and Culture is a group of scholars and practitioners committed to addressing these and related questions. Members of the Commission (such as Stewart Hoover, Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, Jolyon Mitchell, Lynn Clark, Roberto Goizueta, Peter Malone, Robert White, S.J., Mary Hess and others) represented scholarship in Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia and the U.S. Activities of the commission include: conferences, seminars and consultations; commissioning of specific research; cooperative support of related research projects; cooperation in related conferences, projects, and initiatives; support for media products of various kinds; and preparation and presentation of findings in a variety of forms and contexts. The Commission posted plans, resources, ideas, and findings on its website.
Four Core Issues
In what ways can we say that the media have come to occupy the spaces occupied by religion traditionally?
What religious functions do media fulfill?
What are the new forms of spirituality that are emerging?
Where/how is transcendence found or experienced?
What are the means of meaning-making?
What is the relationship of religious authority to modes of symbolic practice?
Is there a necessary or historic relationship between authority and certain modes of symbolic practice, such as the linear modes?
Are the visual modes inherently threatening to authority? If so, what kinds of authority? Where? Whose?
What are the prospects of religious authority and its practices of legitimation as a result of these conditions?
How must we re-think the relationship between religion and the media?
How does the new situation call into question former dichotomies of sacred and profane spheres, “good” vs “bad” media, etc.?
How does the new situation call into question the traditional “instrumental” understanding of media which has supported many media production activities of the churches; media reform activism of various kinds; and the so-called “media literacy” movement?
What does this new situation imply about epistemology?
Does it call for new epistemologies?
Is the new situation indicative of changed epistemologies in general? That is, that the whole way we think about reality has now been altered.
What is the relation of media practice to epistemology (i.e., are the postmodernists right in claiming that the changed epistemology of the postmodern is a consequence of the media)?
The Christianity and Electronic Culture Listserv
“The Christianity and Electronic Culture List Serve,” called XMC, was a Spanish/English language e-mail discussion group about the contextualization of Christian faith in the new media culture and the implications for Christian faith and practice. Supported by the Study Commission, the list serve was moderated by Rev. Dr. Peter Horsfield. Subscribers to the list serve received regular e-mail messages that discussed and debated key questions, exchanged resources, and announced news of big or small experiments in the areas of electronic media and faith activities. The list serve was an activity of the Electronic Culture Research Project within the Commission for Mission of the Uniting Church in Victoria, Australia, with help from JM Communications in Houston, Texas.